Perhaps my love for old buildings was born during those days of solitary exploring our old church building almost 30 years ago. Writing about it this morning drew my memory back to another day, a day like many, many other days in my early childhood.
Mom volunteered in the church office; on this particular day, she and the secretary, Esther, were producing the weekly bulletin. I remember sitting on the floor in the corner for quite some time, surrounded by the smell of the purple ink in the mimeograph machine, and the heartbeat of the folding machine that gobbled a sheet of printed paper and with an aggressive THUNK, spit it neatly folded in half out the other end.
After a while, I got tired of sitting on the floor, so I'd quietly turn the flower-patterned metal knob, smooth under my fingers from years of use, and emerge, mouse-like, on the empty stage, looking out onto the deserted sanctuary.
Rows of wooden seats, their bottoms folded primly, except for the few that stood jarringly out of place still unfolded, marched in their orderly semicircle across the room. Above the seats, the huge , flat stained-glass chandelier nested several round circles of rubber bands where the big boys naughtily shot them from the balcony.
Slowly, I'd walk off the stage into the thick quietness of the sanctuary, the sea of bright blue carpet muffling my footsteps. To this day, the word "blue" still brings back that carpet, stretching away up the hills of silent aisles, patterned here and there with the light from arching stained glass windows where the kind face of Jesus, a lamb in his arms, gazed unceasingly down on the room.
The echoing sound of space closed down upon me as I neared the overhanging balcony and entered the back hallway. Sometimes, I'd pause beside the rack of tracts, looking for something to fill the hours until we headed home again. I'd flick through them, reading the comic-like stories of men who lived a worldly life, waited too late to repent, and were doomed forever to a flame-encrusted hell where a cartoon devil chortled over their entrapment. After a few such stories, I'd put the booklets back on their rack and wander on.
I usually avoided the Sunday school room to the right where my class was held on Sundays, because the old-building smell mixed with play dough made me gag. Instead, I'd tiptoe past the Men's bathroom to the conference room, because the wallpaper, a wall-sized photographic mural of a woodland scene, drew me toward it as if by wishing hard enough I could make the scene real and walk into that beautiful place. I would stand in front of it, at the exact point where my blurry vision made it clear enough to see, but far enough back that I could take in most of the image, and just stare and stare at it, conjuring in my imagination the mossy scent of the trees, the layered sound of the brook, and the rustle of the leaves overhead. Instead of the never-changing seasons of the imprisoned photo, I made it live and breathe, the leaves turning color and falling, and then the quiet snow covering it with piercing gray-white brilliance. Spring would come with renewed birdsong, and I wondered if the picture felt sad to be always frozen in late summer or early autumn, never to again feel the warmth of the first spring sun.
After visiting the conference-room photo, I'd walk out through the fellow-ship room where the ragged wood floor had once given me a sliver in the bottom of my foot after I'd made the childlike mistake of sliding along it. I'd slowly climb the side stairs, wading through fingers of glass-colored sunlight to the balcony, where I peered into the adult Sunday school rooms, all of which held a sharp, stale smell made up of bad coffee, dust, the dregs of women's perfume and hundreds of other unidentifiable ghosts of smells from 50 years of lessons on Ezekiel and Romans.
I'd walk along the track of carpet at the top of the balcony, reveling in the half-imagined thrilling fear of being up so high above the world. One misstep off the steps that lurked just beyond the edge of my untrustworthy eyesight would surely send me rolling down them and over the edge of the low brass rail. Laughing at my own silliness, but still afraid nonetheless, I hurried to the other side stairway, the one that lacked morning sun and lay cloaked in cool, blue shadow. I walked past the table with the "Daily Bread" devotionals and the forms that allowed elderly congregants to dedicate a hymnal "sacred to the memory" of their deceased aunts and grandmothers. I searched for a discarded bulletin from last week that might have enough white space where I might draw a picture on it.
Sometimes, the custodian would be there, and I'd follow him around chattering at him, grateful to find another human being in the quiet stillness of the waiting building. The custodian, named Tim, had a beard that made him look a bit like a leprechaun, and a laid-back personality that allowed him to tolerate the company of a lonely child with far too much to say.
Sometimes, when Tim was not there, I'd walk slowly up and down the aisles, running my fingers over the tops of the metal radiators, and counting the rows of chairs that I passed. I stayed quiet, and did not play the piano that sat on the stage, for to do so might bring out one of the adults and prolong my time waiting for them to finish with their work.
Going back in and pestering them to let me help usually resulted in a similar length of stay, so I simply waited, making friends with the quiet building, learning its secrets, until I almost pitied the people hurrying through it on Sunday, who had never taken the time to study its quiet beauties, who had never walked through its empty rooms during those days when it too waited between Sundays, waited to be needed and useful again.
I think I fell in love with real wood during those long, slow mornings, running my fingers along the miles of windowsill below the arching stained glass. I think I began to notice architecture during those hours of listening to the space under the domes ceiling that I could never quite see. Probably it was perfecting the art of tossing a paper airplane from the balcony that first awakened my interest in physics, and it was running my fingers along the tiny railroad tracks of spaces between the bricks that kindled a love of form and texture. The old church, with its dignified beauty, built in a less hurried era when people still had time to ornament their buildings, awakened in me a love for the antique, for the patient stories in old things and the secrets they seldom share to those who refuse to take the time to really listen.
Mom volunteered in the church office; on this particular day, she and the secretary, Esther, were producing the weekly bulletin. I remember sitting on the floor in the corner for quite some time, surrounded by the smell of the purple ink in the mimeograph machine, and the heartbeat of the folding machine that gobbled a sheet of printed paper and with an aggressive THUNK, spit it neatly folded in half out the other end.
After a while, I got tired of sitting on the floor, so I'd quietly turn the flower-patterned metal knob, smooth under my fingers from years of use, and emerge, mouse-like, on the empty stage, looking out onto the deserted sanctuary.
Rows of wooden seats, their bottoms folded primly, except for the few that stood jarringly out of place still unfolded, marched in their orderly semicircle across the room. Above the seats, the huge , flat stained-glass chandelier nested several round circles of rubber bands where the big boys naughtily shot them from the balcony.
Slowly, I'd walk off the stage into the thick quietness of the sanctuary, the sea of bright blue carpet muffling my footsteps. To this day, the word "blue" still brings back that carpet, stretching away up the hills of silent aisles, patterned here and there with the light from arching stained glass windows where the kind face of Jesus, a lamb in his arms, gazed unceasingly down on the room.
The echoing sound of space closed down upon me as I neared the overhanging balcony and entered the back hallway. Sometimes, I'd pause beside the rack of tracts, looking for something to fill the hours until we headed home again. I'd flick through them, reading the comic-like stories of men who lived a worldly life, waited too late to repent, and were doomed forever to a flame-encrusted hell where a cartoon devil chortled over their entrapment. After a few such stories, I'd put the booklets back on their rack and wander on.
I usually avoided the Sunday school room to the right where my class was held on Sundays, because the old-building smell mixed with play dough made me gag. Instead, I'd tiptoe past the Men's bathroom to the conference room, because the wallpaper, a wall-sized photographic mural of a woodland scene, drew me toward it as if by wishing hard enough I could make the scene real and walk into that beautiful place. I would stand in front of it, at the exact point where my blurry vision made it clear enough to see, but far enough back that I could take in most of the image, and just stare and stare at it, conjuring in my imagination the mossy scent of the trees, the layered sound of the brook, and the rustle of the leaves overhead. Instead of the never-changing seasons of the imprisoned photo, I made it live and breathe, the leaves turning color and falling, and then the quiet snow covering it with piercing gray-white brilliance. Spring would come with renewed birdsong, and I wondered if the picture felt sad to be always frozen in late summer or early autumn, never to again feel the warmth of the first spring sun.
After visiting the conference-room photo, I'd walk out through the fellow-ship room where the ragged wood floor had once given me a sliver in the bottom of my foot after I'd made the childlike mistake of sliding along it. I'd slowly climb the side stairs, wading through fingers of glass-colored sunlight to the balcony, where I peered into the adult Sunday school rooms, all of which held a sharp, stale smell made up of bad coffee, dust, the dregs of women's perfume and hundreds of other unidentifiable ghosts of smells from 50 years of lessons on Ezekiel and Romans.
I'd walk along the track of carpet at the top of the balcony, reveling in the half-imagined thrilling fear of being up so high above the world. One misstep off the steps that lurked just beyond the edge of my untrustworthy eyesight would surely send me rolling down them and over the edge of the low brass rail. Laughing at my own silliness, but still afraid nonetheless, I hurried to the other side stairway, the one that lacked morning sun and lay cloaked in cool, blue shadow. I walked past the table with the "Daily Bread" devotionals and the forms that allowed elderly congregants to dedicate a hymnal "sacred to the memory" of their deceased aunts and grandmothers. I searched for a discarded bulletin from last week that might have enough white space where I might draw a picture on it.
Sometimes, the custodian would be there, and I'd follow him around chattering at him, grateful to find another human being in the quiet stillness of the waiting building. The custodian, named Tim, had a beard that made him look a bit like a leprechaun, and a laid-back personality that allowed him to tolerate the company of a lonely child with far too much to say.
Sometimes, when Tim was not there, I'd walk slowly up and down the aisles, running my fingers over the tops of the metal radiators, and counting the rows of chairs that I passed. I stayed quiet, and did not play the piano that sat on the stage, for to do so might bring out one of the adults and prolong my time waiting for them to finish with their work.
Going back in and pestering them to let me help usually resulted in a similar length of stay, so I simply waited, making friends with the quiet building, learning its secrets, until I almost pitied the people hurrying through it on Sunday, who had never taken the time to study its quiet beauties, who had never walked through its empty rooms during those days when it too waited between Sundays, waited to be needed and useful again.
I think I fell in love with real wood during those long, slow mornings, running my fingers along the miles of windowsill below the arching stained glass. I think I began to notice architecture during those hours of listening to the space under the domes ceiling that I could never quite see. Probably it was perfecting the art of tossing a paper airplane from the balcony that first awakened my interest in physics, and it was running my fingers along the tiny railroad tracks of spaces between the bricks that kindled a love of form and texture. The old church, with its dignified beauty, built in a less hurried era when people still had time to ornament their buildings, awakened in me a love for the antique, for the patient stories in old things and the secrets they seldom share to those who refuse to take the time to really listen.
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